Drilling into (and hydraulic fracturing of) subterranean zones to enable and or enhance recovery of hydrocarbons is now common practice in the oil and gas industry. However, drilling and other oil and gas production processes often result in massive amounts of waste which must be disposed. The waste can contain drilling solids and fluids, stimulation treatment fluids, sand, fines, and other solids from the wellbore, proppant and chemicals from hydraulic fracturing, produced water, brine, hydrocarbons and other fluid and solid components accumulated during oil and gas production. Waste streams from numerous other industries (including but not to waste from chemical manufacturing, waste from landfills, waste from residential sources, waste from refining practices, radioactive waste generated during recycling and processing, and biological and or other hazardous wastes) also lead to fluid and solid waste types that can be managed using the disclosed methods. One method of disposing of these waste streams is injection into a subterranean zone using a disposal well. In some methods of disposal, the disposal well is completed in one or more subterranean zones that are fractured or re-fractured during injection.
As with oil and gas production wells, it is useful to know or estimate various properties of the zones that may be used for injection, insofar as these properties may directly or indirectly affect the impact of injection on the surrounding reservoir volume, containment of the injected fluids, and fracture behavior during and after injection. It has also become important to estimate which of the properties can be used to identify targeted zones for injection, and how these properties change over time. The operating procedures used to carry out injection operations (which lead to fracture behaviors) are tightly coupled with the subsurface geology and its dynamic response to injection. A robust methodology that accounts for this coupling, and which includes real-time feedback to enables and provide directional changes to the operating procedures, helps ensure safe and optimal disposal.